1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to knives.
2. Description of the Related Art
Culinary knives have long been available with a myriad of blade types, each designed to perform a different operation on food products. Typically, a knife performs only one operation, such as meat-cleaving, fruit-peeling, bread-slicing or spreading butter, jam, peanut butter, cream cheese and other spreads. Thus, in order to perform more than one function, more than one knife was needed. Some special-purpose knives have been designed to perform more than one operation. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,040,138, issued to Buck in 1912, discloses a fishing knife with multiple edges. One edge performs a cutting function, another edge performs a scaling function, and a third edge performs a scraping function to clean the insides of a fish.
When preparing a slice of bread with butter or another spread, several steps are required. One must slice the loaf of bread with a bread knife having relatively large serrations, put the bread knife aside, and then select a butter knife having smaller serrations, and often a rounded tip, for scraping the spread from its container and spreading it onto the slice. Using a plurality of knives, however, has several drawbacks. First, alternating knives is inconvenient, particularly when the multiple steps described above are repeated several times during preparation of a large number of buttered bread slices. Second, since more than one knife becomes soiled, extra utensil washing is required. Additionally, increased knife handling increases the risk of injury to the user. The Buck knife and other knives fail to provide a solution to these common inconveniences that face many people on a daily basis. Accordingly, a need exists for a knife that can both slice bread and spread a spread onto the sliced bread.
A further drawback associated with conventional butter knives is the difficulty one may encounter when scraping hard butter from its container and then spreading it onto the bread. When grasping a knife handle in a fist-like orientation, the user may not have the leverage needed for controlled scraping and spreading. Instead of scraping thin layers of spreadable butter from the container onto the butter knife, a chunk of butter may accidentally break off. The index finger of the hand that holds the knife, if extended onto blade portion of the knife, can function as a lever to provide greater control of the lateral scraping and spreading action performed on hard butter or the like. However, conventional butter knives do not provide a dedicated location upon which the tip of an index finger may be strategically placed for maximum knife control when scraping and spreading in a lateral, or sideways, motion. Although the tip of an index finger may be placed onto the handle or smooth face of the blade of any conventional butter knife to gain better leverage, such practice may be uncomfortable and risks injury to the finger or hand as the finger may slip off of the knife while scraping or spreading. Accordingly, a need also exists for a knife that facilitates improved control of the knife when scraping and spreading spreads.